The Flying Saucers are Real | Page 4

emanate from any conventional airplane. The
Wednesday night spectacle was entirely dissimilar. Then, heavy smoke
boiled and swirled in a broad, dark ribbon fanning out at least a mile in
width and stretching across the sky in a straight line. Since there was no
proof as to what caused the strange predark manifestation, and because
even expert witnesses were unable to explain the appearance, the matter
remains a subject for interesting speculation.
There is strong evidence that this story was deliberately kept off the
press wires. The Associated Press and other wire services in

Washington had no report. Requests for details by Frank Edwards,
Mutual newscaster, and other
{p. 12}
radio commentators ran into a blank wall. At the Pentagon I was told
that the Air Force had no knowledge of the sighting or the vapor-trail
maneuvers.
On February 22 two similar glowing objects were seen above Boca
Chica Naval Air Station at Key West. A plane sent tip to investigate
was hopelessly outdistanced; it was obvious the things were at a great
height. Back at the station, radarmen tracked the objects as they
hovered for a moment above Key West. They were found to be at least
fifty miles above the earth. After a few seconds, they accelerated at
high speed and streaked out of sight.
On the following day Commander Augusto Orrego, a Chilean naval
officer, reported that saucers had flown above his antarctic base.
"During the bright antarctic night," be said, "we saw flying saucers, one
above the other, turning at tremendous speeds. We have photographs to
prove what we saw."
Early in March, Ken Purdy phoned the latest development in the
investigation. He had just received a tip predicting a flurry of saucer
publicity during March. It had come from an important source in
Washington.
"You know what it probably means," he said. "The same thing we
talked about last month. But why were we tipped off in advance?"
"It's one more piece in the pattern," I said. "If the tip's on the level, then
they're stepping up the program."
Within three days, reports began to pour in--from Peru, Cuba, Mexico,
Turkey, and other parts of the world. Then on March 9 a gleaming
metallic disk was sighted over Dayton, Ohio. Observers at Vandalia

Airport phoned Wright-Patterson Field. Scores of Air Force pilots and
groundmen watched the disk, as fighters raced up in pursuit. The
mysterious object streaked vertically skyward, hovered for a while
miles above the earth, and then disappeared. A secret report was rushed
to the Civil Aeronautics Authority in Washington, then turned over to
Air Force Intelligence.
Soon after this Dr. Craig Hunter, director of a medical supply firm,
reported a huge elliptical saucer flying at a low altitude in Pennsylvania.
He described it as metallic, with a slotted outer rim and a rotating ring
just inside. {p. 13} On top of this sighting, thousands of people at
Farmington, New Mexico, watched a large formation of disks pass high
above the city.
Throughout all these reports, the Air Force refused to admit the
existence of flying saucers. On March 18 it flatly denied they were Air
Force secret missiles or space-exploration devices.
Three days later, a Chicago and Southern airliner crew saw a fast-flying
disk near Stuttgart, Arkansas. The circular craft, blinking a strange
blue-white light, pulled up in an arc at terrific speed. The two pilots
said they glimpsed lighted ports on the lower side as the saucer zoomed
above them. The lights had a soft fluorescence, unlike anything they
had seen.
There was one peculiar angle in the Arkansas incident. There was no
apparent attempt to muzzle the two pilots, as in earlier airline cases.
Instead, a United Press interview was quickly arranged, for nation-wide
publication. In this wire story Captain Jack Adams and First Officer G.
W. Anderson made two statements:
"We firmly believe that the flying saucer we saw over Arkansas was a
secret experimental type aircraft--not a visitor from outer space. . .
"We know the Air Force has denied there is anything to this
flying-saucer business, but we're both experienced pilots and we're not
easily fooled."

The day after this story appeared, I was discussing it with an airline
official in Washington.
"That's an odd thing," he said. "The Air Force could have persuaded
those pilots--or the line president--to hush the thing up. It looks as if
they wanted that story broadcast."
"You mean the whole thing was planted?"
"I won't say that, though it could have been. Probably they did see
something. But they might have been told what to say about it."
"Any idea why?"
He looked at me sharply. "You and Purdy probably know the answer.
At a guess, I'd say it might have been planned to offset that Navy
commander's report--the one on the White Sands